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ORCHID VALE

PRIMARY SCHOOL

Prospectus

2016/17

Nursery

Orchid Vale Primary School

Torun Way

Haydon End

Swindon SN25 1UG

Tel: 01793 745006

e-mail: admin@orchidvale.swindon.sch.uk

www.orchidvale.swindon.sch.uk

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EEnnjjooyyiinngg lleeaarrnniinngg ttooggeetthheerr!! AAcchhiieevviinngg ssuucccceessss ttooggeetthheerr!!

On behalf of the Governing Body and the staff I would like to welcome you to

Orchid Vale Primary School. As a prospective parent I know that you will have lots

of questions. This prospectus tries to answer some of these questions.

Orchid Vale Primary School is an expanding school, but still has that community

ethos, where everyone knows each other and enjoys working together.

The school aims to provide the best possible

education for all the children in our care,

although this will only be possible with your

wholehearted support. You trust us to take care

of your child and we all take that trust very

seriously. We welcome your comments about

the service that we provide, as we cannot hope

to improve what we do without feedback.

State of the art buildings, the latest technology and classroom resources and

attractive, well equipped grounds provide a high quality environment to motivate

the whole school community to achieve the very highest standards in an exciting

and meaningful way.

A good school is one where children are safe, happy to learn and where

communication is constant. I believe that if you come and visit our school you will

experience first hand the happy, inclusive ethos and excitement for learning that

exists within our school community. Through the education we provide, we aim to:

- Make a difference to children’s life chances;

- Nurture the talents of every single child and help them reach their full

potential;

- Provide the highest possible standards of care for all children;

- Make learning fun!

Welcome to Orchid Vale Primary School. We look forward to meeting you soon.

Warmest regards,

Nick Sheppard

Head Teacher

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The Nursery Curriculum

From the age of 3 until the end of the Reception Year children follow the Early

Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum. The EYFS Curriculum is organised into

7 areas of learning, the Prime areas and the Specific areas. The Prime areas are the

essential areas of learning that underpin the skills within the Specific areas. At

Orchid Vale Primary School staff provide access to all 7 areas of learning all of the

time but their focus is on developing the prime areas first.

The Prime Areas of Learning are:

•Communication and Language: Giving children

opportunities to experience a rich language

environment; to develop their confidence and skills in

expressing themselves; and to speak and listen in a

range of situations.

• Physical Development: Providing opportunities for

young children to be active and interactive; to develop

their fine and gross motor skills, control, and

movement. Children must also be helped to

understand the importance of physical activity, and to

make healthy choices in relation to food.

• Personal, Social and Emotional Development:

Helping children to develop a positive sense of

themselves, and others; to form positive relationships

and to develop respect for others; to develop social

skills and learn how to manage their feelings; to

understand appropriate behaviour in groups; and to

have confidence in their own abilities.

The specific areas of learning are:

•Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters

and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of

reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their

interest.

• Mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and

improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating

simple addition and subtraction problems, spaces, and measures; recognising and

describing shapes and comparing a range of measures.

• Understanding the World involves guiding children to make sense of their

physical world and their community through

opportunities to explore, observe and find

out about people, places, technology and the

environment.

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• Expressive Arts and Design involves enabling children to explore and play with

a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and

encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of

activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology.

In Orchid Vale Nursery we aim to

support and develop children’s

learning by building on their

interests, abilities, ideas and

experiences.

We also aim to work in close

partnership with you to continue

the valuable learning that takes

place at home.

We plan for these areas of learning through a variety of topic based activities. The

Nursery session is carefully planned to give the children the opportunity to

experience a wide range of stimulating activities through structured play

situations so that learning will be fun.

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Links With Home

At home you can ...

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

• Encourage them to go to the toilet without a lot of help;

• Show them how to wash and dry their hands;

• Encourage them to dress and undress themselves and practise doing and

undoing buttons and zips; putting on and taking off shoes;

• Using a knife and fork;

• Putting away their own toys.

Communication, language and literacy

Speaking and listening

• Talk with your child about what you are doing and what they are doing;

• Listen to what your child is trying to say;

• Do things together and talk about it;

• Say or sing nursery rhymes or action rhymes;

• Encourage your child to talk with other children;

• Play games inside and out;

• Answer your child’s questions.

Reading

• Sing or say rhymes together;

• Read or tell stories to your child as much as you can;

• Show your child how to take care of their books;

• Talk about the pictures and stories;

• Let your child see you reading;

• Join the library;

• Set aside some time daily to share stories.

Writing

• Let them see you writing e.g. shopping lists, greetings

cards, using chalk, crayons, pencils etc.;

• Point to the words when you are reading a story;

• Do lots of drawing and painting together;

• Let them have a go at writing and share this with you;

• Make cards e.g. birthday, Christmas;

• Display their pictures and writing attempts.

Mathematical development

Number

• Count out the pennies when you are shopping;

• Count out plates etc for dinner;

• Sort out the shopping e.g. count the tins etc;

• Sort the socks, colour, size etc;

• Sing number songs;

• Look for numbers;

• Count out pegs etc;

• Count as you walk up and down the stairs.

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Measure

• Tidy up the clothes / toys into big / small;

• Pour drinks, talk about full / empty;

• At bath time have containers to play at filling and emptying;

• Sort objects, light / heavy, long / short etc;

• Cook together and weigh ingredients.

Time

• Talk about what day it is;

• Talk about what you did yesterday, today and will do tomorrow;

• Discuss different times of day e.g. bed time, in the morning, after lunch.

Shape

• Do jigsaws together;

• Talk about shapes when you are out and about;

• Try and fit shapes together.

Colour

• Sort things according to colour;

• Talk about the colour of things around you e.g. cars, clothes etc. ;

• Mixing colours;

• Explore different colour pencils and pens;

• Identify colours as often as you can.

Understanding the World.

• Look at birds, trees and flowers;

• Talk about the weather and different seasons;

• Look for insects, find out where they live by watching them;

• Plant seeds and look after them;

• Investigate floating and sinking with toys in the bath;

• Build with lego / construction;

• Practice tidying away;

• Teach your child to remember their address;

• Use the remote control;

• Look at baby photos;

• Talk about how different your childhood was;

• Talk to grandparents.

Physical Development.

• Take your child to the park or play area;

• Play games of catch;

• Play football;

• Play hopping on one foot then the other;

• Let your child use pencils and crayons on paper;

• Use scissors;

• Practise using zips, buttons, laces etc..

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Creative Development

• Collect interesting objects and talk about them;

• Collect different wools and materials;

• Make pictures using paint, wool, crayons, paper and material;

• Mix your own dough;

Dough recipe

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup of water

1 cup of salt

Drop of food colouring

Mix all ingredients until firm.

• Listen to music together, sing nursery rhymes and songs;

• Make musical instruments from empty packets;

• Let your child dress up and pretend to be someone else.

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Partnership with Parents

Orchid Vale is a partnership between school and home. If you feel you could help in

school, please let us know. Below are a few ideas:

Helping with

storysacks

Making costumes for plays /

concerts

Can you

help in

school?

Helping with

cooking

Repairing books

and equipment

Listening to

children read

or ‘book talk’

Talking about

your

experiences

Come with

us on our

welly walks

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Child Protection

Teachers and support staff are uniquely placed, as responsible adults outside

pupils’ family homes, to be able to detect signs of possible child abuse. Whenever

there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child is suffering or is likely to suffer

significant harm the Designated Safeguarding Lead, Mr Nick Sheppard, will inform

the duty social worker immediately, in line with official guidelines. Our first

priority is your child’s welfare and therefore there may be occasions when our

concern about your child means that we have to consult other agencies before we

contact you if a disclosure is made. We appreciate that it can be upsetting for

parents when this happens but ask that you understand that the school acts in the

best interest of the child – their safety, security and protection are our main

priority. The procedures we follow have been laid down by the South West Child

Protection Procedures www.swcppp.org.uk, and are in accordance with Swindon

Borough Council guidance. If you want to know more about these procedures,

please speak to the Headteacher/Designated Safeguarding Lead. Copies of the

school’s Child Protection Policy are available from the school office and on the

school website

Children’s Health

Please keep children with any sign of illness at home. If your child is away through

illness, please telephone the school as early as possible to advise us of the

situation.

If your child has been away due to illness, please ensure they are fully recovered

before they return to the Nursery. This is to ensure children are well enough to

enjoy and manage a session in school and prevent the risk of spreading the

infection. If your child has had any form of sickness or diarrhoea they must be kept

home for at least 48 hours after the symptoms have cleared.

We would expect your child to be fully toilet / potty trained when they start at the

Nursery, unless there is a medical or developmental reason. Please let us know if

this is the case.

Orchid Vale Primary School promotes healthy eating and children are encouraged

to drink water during the day. Water bottles can be purchased from the school

office for £1.30.

Nursery opening times

Nursery sessions run from 8.30-11.30am and 12.15-3.15pm. Where Nursery

children have siblings in the school, parents are encouraged to drop their child at

Nursery at 8.30 first or, in the afternoons, collect their school age children first.

Nursery children are encouraged to wear ‘old’ clothes that can get messy rather

than their ‘Sunday best’. Joggers are ideal and parents can purchase a school

sweatshirt if they wish.

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Safety at School

We would ask all parents for their co-operation in the following matters for the

health and safety of all concerned.

Parking

We would prefer children to walk to school as this promotes a healthy lifestyle and

reduces the amount of traffic congestion outside the school site. If you do need to

park, please be considerate and ensure you are not causing problems to local

residents. This includes double parking, blocking driveways or reversing while

children are around. Some older and disabled residents in Zakopane Road have

found this a real problem in recent years.

Cycle Racks

We are lucky to have cycle racks where

children’s cycles or scooters can be stored

safely throughout their time in Nursery. We

expect all children cycling to school to wear a

safety helmet.

Security

During session times the gates will be locked, therefore parents coming into school

after the start time will need to report to the school reception area at the front of

the school where they will be given assistance.

Prams and pushchairs

These should be left outside the school and Nursery at all times. They can create a

fire risk, blocking easy access to fire exits. We are proud of our school and

encourage everyone to treat it with care.

Jewellery

Children should not wear any jewellery to school. If a child has pierced ears then

only sleeper studs are permitted. On P.E. days it would be preferable if no earrings

are worn, as they will need to be taped up for the session.

Developing Orchid Vale Education (PTA)

We have a very active parent organisation, who work hard to

support the school. DOVE organise many activities and

functions which are always fun and enjoyable and all money

raised goes to support the school. We are hoping many of

you will offer your support as it is a great way of building our

school community and getting to know everyone.

Community Links

We are keen to develop links across our community where we can share expertise,

building relations and enrich our children’s enjoyment of learning. Assemblies

with visitors from our local churches are an integral part of collective worship

provision. We support a range of local, national and international charities,

particularly those associated with helping children. We also seek support and

assistance from our wider local community through grants and sponsorship.

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Special Educational Needs

We monitor all children’s progress and their behaviour. If teachers have any

concern about a child then this is recorded on a class concern sheet. We then

ensure parents are made aware of the reasons for concern in relation to their child.

Our school has a Special Needs Register (list) indicating the stage of concern for

any child with Special Needs.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

In line with our Equality Duty, as set out in the Equality Act 2010, we are committed to

ensuring that no member of the school community is discriminated against and treated

less favourably because of their race, nationality, religion, gender, disability, or sexual

orientation.

We will make reasonable adjustments to ensure that pupils, members of staff and parents

are not disadvantaged. We will monitor the achievement and engagement of children

with protected characteristics on an annual basis to ensure we are doing everything we

can to provide equality of opportunity.

To ensure we continue to meet the Equality Duty, we develop and publish specific and

measurable objectives every four years based on the evidence that we have gathered over

time and the engagement we have been involved in. Both our Equality, Diversity and

Inclusion Policy and our Equality Plan are available on our school website.

Policy for dealing with complaints

Please see the school website for details of the school Complaints Procedure.